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SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

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Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#31

Post by gregmac »

thelean12 wrote: post #24
dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

Your description of ideal working conditions sounds so robotic to me. Schedule everything! No off the cuff conversations! Screw the human desire for socializing, we've got shit to do! Right now my team is comprised of no one that I've met in person. I feel absolutely no connection to them and feel so incredibly disconnected from my work. Like I've been playing the same video game for 8 hours a day for a year and noth…

Curious:

Do you do regular video calls? Do you ever discuss anything aside from work? Even during a "work" discussion, do people make jokes, laugh, etc?

Do you have chat (slack) channels, and are they active? Does anyone ever spontaneously post something like "hey, anyone feel like talking about x that I'm trying to sort out?" Is chat pure business or do people ever discuss anything else?

These are all kind of leading questions, but the things that I think are key to making it work.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#32

Post by dleslie »

thelean12 wrote: post #24
dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

Your description of ideal working conditions sounds so robotic to me. Schedule everything! No off the cuff conversations! Screw the human desire for socializing, we've got shit to do! Right now my team is comprised of no one that I've met in person. I feel absolutely no connection to them and feel so incredibly disconnected from my work. Like I've been playing the same video game for 8 hours a day for a year and noth…

We actively talk over slack. There's a #random channel, a #stonks channel, et al. There's plenty of banter.

But _anyone_ can mute those and focus. I _cannot_ mute a coworker talking loudly next to my desk.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#33

Post by sb_student »

If we gave managers/business owners the choice of

(1) a traditional in-office, no WFH environment and a smaller profit, OR (2) a partial/full WFH setup and a larger profit,

my gut sense (I can't back it up) is that a huge percentage of businesses would forgo profit for the psychological benefit of seeing their employees daily. Maybe it makes them feel more in control, or more important, or just loneliness.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#34

Post by dleslie »

darksaints wrote: post #22
dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

That seems pretty dismissive of the people who have trouble working from home because they have more distractions at home. Not everybody can be child free, single, and live in a quiet place.

I have a wife and two children six and under. Working from home has far less distractions than any office I've ever been in.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#35

Post by dleslie »

biomcgary wrote: post #20
dleslie wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree! Having a _minimal_ barrier to communication acts as a filter, in a similar way that requiring registration acts as a quality filter for a forum. Folks must gather interest in the meeting, rather than interrupt and demand focus; this, at minimum, gives them some time to reconsider the concepts that they want to raise with their coworkers.

Not just any minimal barrier. Extroverts wired to speak spontaneously (i.e., have high Foxp2 gene expression) are the most likely to disrupt others for non-functional reasons. Requiring verbal communication to be initiated through written means is a great way to increase the signal-to-noise threshold for communication. Meanwhile, those who are not spontaneously verbal have a relatively low barrier (a sentence in chat…

Interesting! Do you have further reading I might be able to consume?

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#36

Post by c3534l »

dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

There are a lot of people who don't have nice home situations. Screaming babies, cramped spaces, constant interruptions - that sort of thing. For a programmer/tech worker that has a decent place to live, I'm not surprised you think it's easy.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#37

Post by pmarreck »

dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

It may depend on the person and the job.

Pre-pandemic I lasted only 4 months at a remote job. I kept asking to meet them (they were in Atlanta, me in Long Island, but most of them were scattered), meeting stakeholders in person gives me a charge which aids my focus and overall productivity. Anyway they kept deferring, and then one day sort of out of the blue and without warning (literally... the day prior the supervisor's supervisor did a call with me and it went well), the supervisor and a longstanding coworker both just started grilling me hard and when they didn't like my answers (note that I was still learning the very complex application codebase at this point) the supervisor basically decided it's not working out.

This past year has terrified me with the idea that all tech work will now be done remotely. Fortunately I'm working on my own projects directly for clients but unfortunately it's not paying very well at the rate I'm being productive (which is "not very"). I am FAR more productive when working physically with other people (who also know intuitively when to not interrupt because they're also programmers).

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#38

Post by lostcolony »

PragmaticPulp wrote: post #2

The SBA is referring specifically to their own employees doing SBA work, not necessarily telework in general. Interestingly, they attribute the additional productivity to the fact that their telework employees are simply working more hours: > “It doesn’t matter to me where your eight-, 10-, 12-hour day is, but as long as we’re getting coverage from that perspective,” Rivera said. > While some federal managers have ex…

I think a lot of it has to do with the nature of the work.

I know where I currently am, my hours have smeared to cross 12 hours of the day. I have meetings as early as 8 AM, and as late as 7 PM, routinely (sometimes even later). That's to accommodate people in other timezones.

But, my middle of the day is oftentimes empty. I'll use that time to go out to a botanical garden, or play a game, or work on personal pursuits, or nap.

It's hard to say whether I'm more productive or not; I changed jobs mid-pandemic and so I don't have much to compare to (and I left my prior job because I was bored; I'm a manager, and wasn't feeling productive, but that's because everything I was empowered to change I had running so smoothly it didn't need my attention, and all I was doing was small boring implementation stuff so the team could have the interesting work).

But I can say that the extra hours aren't really helpful toward being productive (and that I've taken steps to keep them from being harmful). So I'm not sure that people doing stuff across 12 hours of the day really equates to 12 hours of work.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#39

Post by exotree »

thelean12 wrote: post #24
dleslie wrote: post #9

I am _ridiculously_ more productive at home. When I hear folks complain about the pains of working from home, what I often hear are their stories about how they were needlessly disruptive to their coworkers. Having impromptu hallway meetings mean that your peers, and subordinates, must keep an ear open for such events should they risk being left out of important decision making processes. Having watercooler conversat…

Your description of ideal working conditions sounds so robotic to me. Schedule everything! No off the cuff conversations! Screw the human desire for socializing, we've got shit to do! Right now my team is comprised of no one that I've met in person. I feel absolutely no connection to them and feel so incredibly disconnected from my work. Like I've been playing the same video game for 8 hours a day for a year and noth…

What is disconcerting about hybrid? This seems to be the solution that strikes a good balance between your needs and the needs of your other coworkers who probably appreciate the increased flexibility.

Re: SBA executives ‘beyond doubt’ that teleworking employees are more productive

#40

Post by dleslie »

exotree wrote: post #39
thelean12 wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your description of ideal working conditions sounds so robotic to me. Schedule everything! No off the cuff conversations! Screw the human desire for socializing, we've got shit to do! Right now my team is comprised of no one that I've met in person. I feel absolutely no connection to them and feel so incredibly disconnected from my work. Like I've been playing the same video game for 8 hours a day for a year and noth…

What is disconcerting about hybrid? This seems to be the solution that strikes a good balance between your needs and the needs of your other coworkers who probably appreciate the increased flexibility.

Have you ever tried to have a party at two locations?

It doesn't work.

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